Cuban Americans Divided Over Elian

Early this week, the Cuban-American Undergraduate Student Association (CAUSA) launched a postering campaign to protest the government's forceful removal of six-year-old Elian Gonzalez from the home of his Miami relatives. Elian was reunited with his father later that day in Washington.

But members of CAUSA say their posters were ripped down within 30 minutes of being posted.

CAUSA member Anne B. Lord '01 said she was not surprised.

"I think most people in this country feel [Elian] should go back [to Cuba]," Lord said.

And although CAUSA Co-President Michael A. Pineiro '02 said the group officially supports keeping Elian in the United States, he acknowledged that the issue has created dissention among the group.

On Tuesday afternoon, CAUSA member Eddy J. Dominguez '01 sent an e-mail message to the group's mailing list criticizing CAUSA's protests.

"I don't understand what you guys are protesting. Protests aren't going to change what happened, the harm has already been done," Dominguez wrote. "I would be against postering and protesting against the government's actions because the Cuban relatives in Miami are as much at fault as the INS."

Glenn Kinen '01 said that the national media has done Cuban-Americans a disservice by portraying them all as united in support of Elian's Miami relatives.

At Harvard and around the world, "not all Cuban Americans think the same on this," he said.

Some members said they believe that the media has portrayed the Miami Cuban American protesters as overly antagonistic. Others, like Dominguez, said the community's actions are disappointing.

"I'm as Cuabanso as the next guy, but to see the crowds rioting, pushing cops around, starting fires and obstructing justice did not make me proud in the least of being a Cuban-American," Dominguez wrote. " The last thing our people need is to be seen on TV in a rambling mob."

But CAUSA member Manuel A. Garcia '00 said he finds it disturbing that any Cuban-Americans disagree with the Miami community and want Elian to be returned to Cuba.

"I personally think of these people as traitors to the Cuban American community," he wrote in an e-mail message to The Crimson. "These people who fled or whose parents fled Cuba now want to return him to what they know will be a life without a future, without opportunities, without any freedoms. They are condemning this child to a fate that they themselves left Cuba to avoid."

But CAUSA member Richard A. Perez '00, who is also a Crimson editor, said that that calling some Cuban-Americans disloyal simply because they disagree over Elian's fate goes against the very spirit of what the community as a whole came to the United States to protect.

"Every opinion should be heard and shouldn't be persecuted," he said. "One of the reasons why [Cuban Americans] want Elian to stay [in the United States] is for freedom of speech."

Pineiro said he respects individual freedom to dissent but that it is CAUSA's responsibility to take a firm position on the issue.

"If we were to be politically correct and not propound a position, we would be virtually voiceless during a time when the Cuban-American voice is very significant," he and his CAUSA co-president Juan Carlos Rasco wrote in an e-mail message to the CAUSA mailing list.

In order to raise awareness about their position, CAUSA is planning to distribute information concerning the case next week outside the Science Center and is organizing a forum later this month at the Institute of Politics to address the issue of Elian's fate.

"We want to make it clear that we don't represent every member of this organization," Pineiro said. "But as an organization, we have to take a stance."